A congratulations and a happy anniversary is due 688, celebrating its first year in business the last week of May. Yet curiously enough, the "new music" club came of age two weeks prematurely with the appearance of the Late Bronze Age on its stage. Obscure nomenclature for Bruce Hampton, a/k/a Col. Hampton B. Coles (Ret.), Late Bronze Age put on a show of creativity and brilliance seldom matched by other performers at the club and definitely not in the realm of music expected by most of the club's patrons. This was not new wave, not minimalistic, not power pop; but rather a jazz excursion into the avant depths of both the mind and soul of Hampton that bombarded the audience's senses from the set's first mystical notes to its last primitive rampage. Hampton, joined by Ben "Pops" Thornton, a/k/a Billy McPherson, Jerry Fields, AI Nicholson, Ricky Keller and Gary Gazaway, succeeded in presenting a musicologue of sounds that proved again there are no boundaries in music, only possibilities.

Hampton's performance, one of his first rehearsed appearances with a band in years, proved to be quite an event itself. For he was pushing the band through each song (whether with his unique vocal control or sometimes atonal guitar technique), rather than resting on the strength of the musicians.  Most of the material was culled from the Late Bronze Age album, Outside Looking Out, recently released on Landslide Records. The LP, like the concert, is quite an amalgamation of styles and moods quite representative of the unclassifiable timelessness that is always a part of Hampton's repertoire. Forthcoming releases on Landslide include a Dan Wall LP, a collaboration between Wall, john Abercrombie and David Earle Johnson entitled Route Two and a Paul McCandless (formerly of Oregon) album.

A good argument can be made that history sometimes repeats itself, but when history is initially made, there is an awesome intenseness of the moment than can never really be repeated, only experienced. Such was the case recently at Hedgen's Tavern in Buckhead. The stage was set with a performance by Private Jet, a trio featuring guitarist John Durham, bass player Mark Richardson and drummer Jimmy “Mad Dog” Presmanes. Each is an Atlanta musician of high repute that has played the Atlanta scene for years. What most of the audience did not know, however, was that for the last two numbers of the evening they would be joined onstage by guitarist Glenn Phillips and Atlanta Jim Morrison reincarnation Phillip Stone to complete an incestuous little circle of musicians from previous Atlanta bands, Buckhead and The Nasty Bucks.

When the five were finally onstage Stone serio-comically introduced the group as "The Ungrown Men", and for the next 15 minutes the whole bar room audience stood transfixed as they went through Stone originals "St. Andreas Fault'' and "Twenty Mule Team President''. The intensity that filled the room could've been cut with a knife - no one ordered drinks and unsuspecting newcomers stopped in their tracks as they entered the front door. Fans and Atlanta musicians alike were dumbfounded at the sight; singer Stone shamanistically-entranced while Phillips cut through the finely-sculptured denseness of Private Jet's back-up with clean chisels of sound. This was not a witnessing of a reformed Buckhead or Nasty Bucks, but a freshly-created, exhausting moment in Atlanta music history that brought to mind just how shallow some music has gotten.

Changes have been occurring constantly at the Agora since Gary Le Conti moved to town. While under his direction the club has attempted to find a new identity/audience, losing and gaining both in the process. The recent move towards booking copy bands has reduced the stature of the club in the eyes of many area musicians but gained an audience that is allegedly raising the club's revenues. Exactly what is going on there is anyone's guess. Among the constant nightly promotions (i.e., air guitar, Jack Black, etc.) the club has booked some good music, most notably Big Youth, XTC and U2. One item that, as of press time, is definite, is the departure of stage manager Donnie Graves, a main man at the club since its inception, who has recently opted for a more expansive career with The Producers on the road. Good luck in your endeavors, Donnie. Replacing Graves is Paul Bloom, whose previous band experience should make for an easy transition.